Were You AwareOf It? The largest investment fraud in Wall Street history was as we all know perpetuated by the former Chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. But what most people don’t realize is that Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was the indirect result of, ummm, inadequacy issues! Freudian theory FTW!

Fact! Director Alexander Payne of “Citizen Ruth” and “Election” fame’s latest project is HBO’s “Hung.” The new show tells the heartwarming story of a washed out high school sports basketball legend trying to juggle two part time jobs: sports coach and gigolo. As you can probably surmise from the title, the program focuses hella more on the hookin’ and not so much on the jump shot drills per se. I’m going to keep an open mind about this one since Payne has already accomplished the impossible before: making me care about wine.

Did you know? Thankfully cooler heads prevailed in the end and plans for Topps “Watchmen” trading cards were ultimately shelved shortly before the film was released. Wrapped in cellophane with bubble gum inside, the original idea was for the cards to ultimately form a puzzle which pictured the original Giant Alien Squid Destroying New York City ending. But somehow, someway, official Dr. Manhattan condoms were given the go ahead in its stead. This is wrong on like 37 different levels.

Whodofthunkit? The new Sam Rockwell/Kevin Spacey flick “Moon” is directed by David Bowie’s son Duncan. Which is of course a perfect fit considering his dad’s famous obsession with all things space travel related. I really want to see this because it looks like an unholy mash-up of “Silent Running” and “Mystery Science Theatre 3000.” Well, without a Joan Baez soundtrack and any jokes whatsoever. Er, never mind.

Item! Lars Von Trier (Dancer In The Dark) has teamed up with Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man) and Charlotte “I’m Serge’s Daughter” Gainsbourg for what looks like the feel good rom com hit of the decade: Antichrist! Peep this: the plot concerns a couple who lose their young son when he falls out of a window while they have sex in the other room. Hilarious, right? But wait, it gets better! The husband is a therapist who’s writing a thesis paper on genocide. Hubby decides post-funeral this would be a great excuse to head out to the cabin for a little weekend R&R. And before you know it, they run into some wild and wacky animal antics like a still-born deer calf and a self-disembowling fox. Uh oh! Spoiler Alert! So, naturally, the wife blames himself for her son’s death and becomes convinced all women are inherently evil. I don’t wanna give the whole thing away, but let’s just say you’ll never think about crushing a man’s genitals with a block of wood the same way ever again! Or drilling a hole in someone’s calf in order to bolt a millstone to their leg, for that matter. Oh, I almost forgot! The widower beats a crow and buries it alive while the widow performs an amateur clitorectodomy on herself. So, if you like a lot of wife strangling and funeral pyres and animalist religion, then have I got the perfect date night/family event for you! I recommend you watch it together with someone you want to murder. *sigh*

This just in! The inevitable re-makes of “The Prisoner” and “V” are out now and I was pleasantly surprised that nothing was permanently ruined in the process. (For you younguns out there, “V” has nothing do with “V For Vendetta” in any way, shape or form.) What I truly love about stories like “The Prisoner” is that much like any classic timeless epic (Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, Chronicles Of Narnia, His Dark Materials, etc.) conservatives and liberals alike identify with it. Both sides of the political/philosophical coin take completely different things away from the same identical package. That, to me at least, is the mark of truly great writing. This is love, as the kids say nowadays.

7. And to think I once thought that my high school career aptitude test results stated I’d be best suited for undertaker or taxidermist. My theory is I botched the attitude questions accidentally when they gave us a break half way through and I loaded up on Peanut M& M’s and Dr. Pepper. It put me in a better mood than the first half in the morning when I didn’t have any caffeine in my system yet. That’s like 2 different people taking the same test – of course the answers didn’t make any sense at all! And speaking of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde…

6. …this has to be the only thing worse than Julia Robert’s fluctuating accents in Mary Reilly.

4. Xeni Jardin, you were the B.A.M.F. reporter I wish I had been, the one I never will even hope to be. You are my intellectual dream woman. Consider yourself hearted. (BTW, if she and Rachel Maddow ever kiss, that’s gonna be my screensaver wallpaper until I dizzie.)

3. This is my jam. This is my anthem. This is the touch, the feel of cotton. This is the fabric of my life. Mr. Narrator, this is Bob Dylan to me.

1. My favorite horror author of all time is H.P. Lovecraft. (Re-Animator, et al) Tragically, unlike the equally great Clive Barker and Stephen King, he’s never been given the definitive celluloid treatment he so richly deserves. Two sites have semi-recently contributed excellent essays on this subject, namely Evil On Two Legs and Helium. Also, I fully realize it’s rumored that Guillermo del Toro is attached to essentially every upcoming movie in the entire frikkin’ world at the moment, but I’m still uber-excited that he might get to re-make “At The Mountains Of Madness” after all.